Highlights
Read this chapter to:
- Understand how rail transport projects can improve efficiency, safety, and sustainability while promoting gender equality in both passenger and freight operations.
- Learn about the unique barriers women face as rail users, workers, and entrepreneurs—and discover practical interventions to address mobility, affordability, accessibility, and safety challenges.
- Explore global case studies and strategies for increasing women’s employment, leadership, and business opportunities within the rail sector.
- Gain actionable insights on integrating gender-responsive policies, institutional strengthening, and capacity building into railway planning and operations.
Overview:
Railway projects aim to enhance the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of rail transport.
They involve both passenger services, connecting urban and rural areas, and freight operations that support trade and logistics. While challenges for women rail users are similar to those in urban transport, freight rail presents unique issues tied to trade corridors and logistics. These projects focus on reducing transport costs, modernizing infrastructure, and strengthening institutional capacities. Key objectives include building railway branch lines, improving multimodal connections, and modernizing signaling systems. They may also involve engineering studies, environmental documentation, and managing rail-enabled logistics centers.
Additionally, projects prioritize institutional strengthening, capacity building, and governance improvements. Some promote a modal shift to rail for safer, lower-carbon freight and passenger transport, while others focus on track rehabilitation and regional trade. Overall, railway projects contribute to a more efficient, reliable, and sustainable rail network.
Mobility
Women’s mobility in the context of railway projects faces several challenges across several dimensions (that is, availability, affordability, physical accessibility, cultural and social acceptability, and safety).
These complex challenges differ across passenger and freight rail contexts and require nuanced understanding and targeted solutions to ensure equitable access and participation in rail transport systems.
🚌 Availability
In many parts of the world, rail services are less accessible than other public transport modes, such as buses. This is because of limited networks, outdated infrastructure, and lack of investment in the sector. Additionally, inadequate first- and last-mile connectivity to rail services is a major issue and one of the most common challenges faced by rail passengers. In particular, women, who tend to have less access to private cars than men to cover the first mile, and who make multiple stops in their trip-chained journeys, often do not find rail convenient. Trains are often located away from other modes of public transportation, so improving connecting transport options—such as buses, cycling infrastructure, and pedestrian pathways—can significantly boost rail ridership by making it easier for passengers to reach stations (Kurshitashvili, N., Gonzalez Carvajal, K., Saunders, K., and Ait Bihi Ouali, L., 2022).
Rail frequency is another concern that often affects women disproportionally. Women, especially those with caregiving responsibilities or jobs with nonstandard hours, depend on flexible and frequent train schedules. Infrequent or unavailable service during early mornings, late evenings, or weekends can limit women’s access to work, education, health care, and social activities. Irregular train schedules can add uncertainty to women’s travel, especially for those who rely on public transport for time-sensitive responsibilities, such as picking up children or arriving at work on time.
In the freight rail sector, women face distinct but equally important accessibility challenges. Women entrepreneurs encounter significant barriers in accessing rail logistics services, especially in areas with limited freight infrastructure. The poor connectivity between rail networks and commercial zones creates additional hurdles for women-owned businesses attempting to utilize rail freight services. This infrastructure gap often compels these businesses to resort to costlier and less efficient transportation alternatives, undermining their market competitiveness. Additionally, a limited availability of freight handling facilities and convenient storage spaces further complicates their operational efficiency and growth potential. Table 4.1 highlights some key interventions to address availability of rail transport.
INTERVENTIONS | OUTPUT INDICATORS |
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Data collection: Conduct a study to gather sex-disaggregated data on mobility needs for rail, focusing on:
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Tailor rail service frequency and schedules to accommodate women’s travel needs, such as work, childcare, and other responsibilities, particularly during off-peak hours. |
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Improve rail access by enhancing first- and last-mile connectivity in collaboration with other transport sector stakeholders. |
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OUTCOME INDICATORS |
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💰 Affordability
Affordability poses a significant barrier for women from low-income households who often prioritize essential household expenses over transportation, limiting their access to economic opportunities. Long-distance rail travel expenses often become prohibitive for women from low-income households, particularly when they travel with family members. The need for more expensive accommodations to ensure safety and comfort during overnight journeys adds to the financial burden. Women often face difficult choices between cheaper, but less safe travel options, and more expensive but secure alternatives. The cost implications become more significant when considering additional expenses such as porter services, food during travel, and secure accommodations at stations during long waits. Table 4.2 highlights some key interventions to address affordability of rail transport for women.
INTERVENTIONS | OUTPUT INDICATORS |
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The following initiatives aim to improve the affordability of rail transport for women:
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OUTCOME INDICATORS |
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🧑🦯 Accessibility
Physical accessibility in passenger rail presents multifaceted challenges that significantly impact women’s travel experiences. The fundamental issue lies in infrastructure design that primarily caters to male passengers, resulting in significant discomfort for women travelers. This includes seating arrangements that do not consider women's ergonomic needs, particularly during long journeys. Many railway stations lack women-friendly infrastructure, such as ramps or elevators, well-lit and safe pathways, clean and well-lit toilets, and baby-changing facilities. Insufficient amenities in train stations and on trains make it difficult for women, especially those with children or disabilities, to navigate the system. A critical but often overlooked challenge is the information barrier women face in railway spaces. Since rail transport is typically used for long-distance travel, women are less likely to be frequent users and therefore less familiar with navigating these spaces. Complex station layouts, confusing signs, and lack of clear information about schedules, platforms, and services can create significant anxiety and uncertainty.
In general compartments, limited designated women-only seating often results in an uncomfortable proximity to male passengers, particularly in crowded compartments. Even when women’s reserved seats are mandated, these are sometimes occupied by male passengers, and women may hesitate to assert their rights, due to fear of confrontation or retaliation.
For overnight journeys, the challenges become more acute. Lower berth preferences, crucial for elderly women, pregnant women, and those traveling with young children, are often difficult to secure due to high demand. Women traveling with infants face additional difficulties as there are rarely dedicated spaces for breastfeeding or childcare. The standard berth design, typically optimized for adult passengers, poses challenges for women managing both children and luggage simultaneously.
In freight rail facilities, women face distinct physical accessibility challenges that affect their ability to work effectively and safely. The infrastructure at freight terminals and handling facilities often lacks basic amenities essential for women workers, including clean restrooms, changing areas, and rest spaces. Poor lighting in work areas, inadequate ventilation, and an ergonomic equipment design create additional barriers. The layout of freight facilities often fails to consider women’s safety needs, with isolated areas and poor visibility creating potential risk zones. Table 4.3 highlights some key interventions to address accessibility of rail transport for women.
INTERVENTIONS | OUTPUT INDICATORS |
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Ensure platforms are level with train doors for easier boarding and alighting. Build ramps and elevators at stations to ensure smooth access to platforms and trains. Install baggage racks at accessible heights for women. |
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OUTCOME INDICATORS |
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🚨 Safety and Personal Security
Security concerns, such as poorly lit stations, inadequate security measures, and frequent harassment on trains, further exacerbate these challenges, making rail travel unsafe and unappealing for many women. This leads to women avoiding travel or only traveling with an escort, which limits their mobility and freedom compared to men. Furthermore, the isolated location of many freight facilities, combined with the necessity of night-shift operations, creates significant security concerns for women workers. The male-dominated work environment can lead to situations of harassment or discrimination. Addressing these barriers is essential to improving women’s mobility and access to rail services.
The very few women working as railway staff or security personnel further reinforces these cultural barriers. The absence of visible female authority figures, ticket collectors, station managers, or security officers, creates an environment where women travelers often feel insecure and unsupported. The lack of female employees in railway operations not only undermines women’s confidence in using rail services but also perpetuates the perception of railways as a male-dominated space, making it more challenging for women to assert their right to safe and comfortable travel. Table 4.4 highlights some key interventions. Box 4.1 presents a case study from Georgia.
INTERVENTIONS | OUTPUT INDICATORS |
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Railway infrastructure safety: Enhance infrastructure at railway stations to improve safety through the following measures:
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Safety on trains and at stations: Enhance safety protocols to address concerns that discourage women from using rail services by:
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OUTCOME INDICATORS |
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🧩 The Challenge
Accelerating women's integration in the transport sector in Georgia—both in terms of numerical job participation and in pivotal technical and decision-making roles—continues to
🧩 The Challenge
Accelerating women's integration in the transport sector in Georgia—both in terms of numerical job participation and in pivotal technical and decision-making roles—continues to represent an elusive task. If achieved, however, it could help women step up to the urgent challenge of becoming active participants of the ever more skilled and science- and technology-enabled workforce of the future.
Georgian Railway JSC, which employs around 12,000 people, of which 17% are women1, faces significant challenges in attracting women to technical and engineering positions, jobs that are often perceived as unsuitable for women. At Georgia’s Railway Transportation College, a vocational education center created by the company to train cohorts of company workers with a streamlined theoretical and practical approach, only 32 women were enrolled, compared to 298 men in 2020. Georgia’s labor market is highly segregated as per typically male and female roles so even though Georgian Railway has a non-discrimination policy and career development tools available to all staff, it continues to confront difficulties attracting female employees to a sector widely seen as out of bounds for women.
🛠️ The Intervention
A Gender Action Plan was designed for the Georgian Railway Green Bond project under Asian Development Bank’s investment to help women access jobs in transport. In that scope, the company created 350 jobs during the project’s construction phase, out of which 41 positions were taken up by women, an improvement from the 2020 baseline of 31 out of 323 jobs. The project also aimed to increase the number of women in internships to at least 15%, from the 2019 baseline of 11%. Surpassing the intended goal, by the end of 2023, women held 22% of the internships.
Addressing sexual harassment in the workplace is another priority set out in the project. The company adopted a comprehensive policy to counter sexual harassment, supported by easy-to-use reporting tools, investigations, and transparent redress systems. In addition, to help change attitudes in the workplace, nearly 100% of Georgian Railways staff and contractors attended awareness-raising meetings on zero tolerance policies for gender-based violence and non-discriminatory, in addition to learning about female-friendly workplace rules and provisions.
Women transport users are another a focus of the Georgian Railway Green Bond project, which is promoting safety and equality on its system. To make women and girls feel safe on public transport, the Green Bond project installed notice boards in railway passenger stations providing information on hotlines and helplines for reporting violence and harassment and seeking help.
🏗️ Implementation Challenges and Successes
Georgian Railway took the above-mentioned actions and introduced the new policies. Meeting new staffing targets proved, however, more challenging, due to systemic barriers for women seeking jobs in the railway transportation sector. Entrenched barriers hampering women’s participation in the sector include gender norms that discourage women from applying for jobs in a male-dominated professional field, women’s mobility challenges to travel outside the main cities for work as a result of several factors including limited public transportation options and limited time availability as women are overrepresented in their time use for care responsibilities (including children, the elderly). Nonetheless, the internship program attracted women in relatively high numbers. This suggests that the internship program is an effective way to crowd women into the transport sector. With more women exposed to jobs with the railway early in their careers, a virtuous cycle could enable women to successfully transfer from internships to entry-level jobs. In time, women might see these non-traditional industries as attractive places to spend their careers.
💡 Lessons Learned
- Addressing Societal Norms: The project aims to address the underlying beliefs that perpetuate Georgia's deeply entrenched social norms undermining women’s full economic potential by promoting non-traditional career paths for women and raising awareness about inequality towards women’s inclusivity.
- A Holistic Strategy: The project takes a strategic approach to challenge inequalities between men and women in the transport sector, combining policy changes (e.g., establishing a sexual harassment policy), practical measures (e.g., increasing women's employment and safety measures), and capacity building (e.g., training and collaboration with civil society organizations).
- Stakeholder Collaboration: The project emphasizes the importance of partnering with women's organizations for awareness-raising, the value of their expertise, and their networks.
- Monitoring and Evaluation: Focus on monitoring and evaluation is crucial for tracking progress, identifying challenges, and making necessary adjustments to improve outcomes.
📌 Conclusion
The Georgian Railway Green Bond Project committed to integrating women into large-scale infrastructure investment. The project contributes towards increasing women’s participation in a historically male-dominated transport sector in Georgia by creating equal opportunities for women, despite pervasive societal norms that discourage women to pursue careers that required technical and engineering abilities.
Practical steps, like a sexual harassment policy, awareness-raising, and rigorous monitoring have created enabling conditions for more women to enter the railway sector including as interns. The Green Bond project sets a good precedent for future transport sector initiatives. The positive outcomes of the project will contribute to more inclusive and equitable transport in Georgia, yielding lasting benefits for women employees as well as women riders. If further efforts aimed at including women in highly skilled and decision-powered functions are set in motion, it could ultimately contribute to women’s quality economic inclusion and the country's broader development, one that fully acknowledges women’s potential.
Note: Claire Charamnac, Harumi Toyama, Tamar Bortsvadze, and Gisela Garzon De La Roza from the Asian Development Bank provided this case study.
1 Georgian Railway Green Bond Project. Gender Action Plan. Asian Development Bank. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/
project-documents/55132/55132-001-gap-en.pdf. Data from 2020.
Employment
Women in the rail sector face numerous employment challenges rooted in structural, cultural, and institutional barriers.
Low participation in technical education, limited awareness of job opportunities, and exclusion from professional networks hinder recruitment. Gender biases in promotion further restrict women’s advancement. In the workplace, inadequate facilities, ill-fitting PPE, and rigid schedules—often conflicting with caregiving roles—create additional obstacles. Safety concerns, regulatory restrictions, and a lack of mentorship and leadership development programs contribute to low retention and limited career progression, leaving women underrepresented, especially in technical and leadership roles.
🤝 Outreach and Recruitment
The rail industry faces significant challenges in recruiting and retaining female employees. Barriers include low female participation in technical education, gender stereotypes that discourage women from pursuing rail careers, and a lack of awareness about job opportunities, especially in semi-skilled roles like train drivers and conductors. This information gap is worsened by women’s exclusion from professional networks where these roles are often shared, limiting career access. Table 4.2 highlights some suggested interventions for improving women’s recruitment in the rail sector.
INTERVENTIONS | OUTPUT INDICATORS |
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Workforce database: Enhance the HR database to allow an analysis of staff entitlements and conditions based on sex, as well as other demographic and socioeconomic factors. Collecting sex-disaggregated workforce data is essential for developing evidence-based policies and responses. This data can cover a wide range of areas, including overall employment rates for women and men, distribution across various positions, age, training and development opportunities, leave uptake, and duration of employment. |
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Communication to challenge perceptions about the suitability of transport roles for women: This can be done through public communications, job descriptions, and the building of an employer narrative around engaging with women (through links with education, hiring statistics, and new initiatives). |
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Nurturing female talent
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Internship program: Establish a paid internship program for women in male-dominated fields like rail engineering, targeting X female final-year students or recent graduates for X-month internships in key agencies (ministry of transport/rail, rail service providers, and so on). |
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Targeted trainings: Develop targeted training programs for women in rail, collaborating with TVET institutions and universities that prepare graduates for rail to identify candidates. |
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Women as rail operators: Recruit and train women in customer-facing roles such as train drivers, conductors, and other staff. |
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Promoting Women’s Employment through Public Procurement: Require or incentivize private sector operators to include women in technical and managerial roles by integrating gender-related criteria into concessionaire bidding documents. This approach aims to increase women’s participation and employment in the road sector through public procurement processes. |
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OUTCOME INDICATORS |
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📝 HR Policies and Practices
Biases in human resources (HR) and management also persist, particularly toward women with family obligations or those expecting children. These biases can result in unfair treatment, such as overlooking qualified women for promotions or assigning fewer demanding routes to female drivers. The unique challenges of rail work—like security risks during late shifts, long or unpredictable hours, and poor workplace amenities—further discourage women from pursuing frontline roles.
Gender inequalities are evident in workplace infrastructure. Many rail hubs and trains are designed for male employees, with insufficient facilities for women, such as basic sanitation or properly fitted personal protective equipment (PPE). Ill-fitting PPE, like oversized gloves or high visibility clothes, not only creates discomfort but can pose health risks by failing to protect against hazards, potentially leading to injuries or reduced productivity. This lack of consideration is often justified by the sector’s historical male dominance or perceived physical job requirements, reinforcing misconceptions about women’s suitability for certain roles.
Regulatory barriers also hinder women’s participation, such as restrictions on working in certain transport roles or during night shifts. These policies disproportionately affect women, especially when combined with long working hours, which can conflict with caregiving responsibilities or safety concerns.
Table 4.3 highlights some suggested interventions for improving HR policies and practices in the rail sector. Box 4.2 presents a case study from Serbia.
INTERVENTIONS | OUTPUT INDICATORS |
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Human resources policies:
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Childcare facility: Establish employer-provided childcare services, tailored to the organization's business needs and workforce size. Additionally, consider offering financial support to employees—such as childcare subsidies or vouchers—to help cover associated costs. |
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Workplace infrastructure and PPE: Provide separate toilets, changing rooms, lighting and PPE that is appropriately designed to fit both women and men. |
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A staff satisfaction survey: Conduct periodic surveys to assess satisfaction with employment terms, working conditions, hours, leave, professional development, and equal opportunity outcomes. Analyze results by sex and demographics to inform activities, evaluate implementation, and identify areas for improvement. |
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OUTCOME INDICATORS |
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🧩 The Challenge
To get more women to work in transportation, Serbia is going right to the top. The teachers in higher education and technical schools who prepare students for
🧩 The Challenge
To get more women to work in transportation, Serbia is going right to the top. The teachers in higher education and technical schools who prepare students for careers in transport tend to be men. Most of the students are men. It is no wonder that, in many countries, transport tends to be thought of as a place for men to work. A scarcity of female teachers, professors, and even students make it hard for female engineers to find mentors.
Working with Serbia’s Ministry of Construction, Transportation, and Infrastructure, the World Bank is supporting a pilot—the Serbia Railway Sector Modernization project (P170868)—to give three PhD scholarships to women working in the railway business. A key condition of the program, as in other scholarship programs, is a mandatory requirement to work in Serbia for at least four years after completing the program.
🛠️ The Intervention
The PhD scholarship program got off to a rough start. Recruiting candidates was slow. Only four women applied and only two of those met the minimum criteria. The PhD candidates were required to finish their degree programs in three years or repay their tuition. Many women, who often juggle multiple responsibilities, found this deadline tight.
Despite delays and a very small candidate pool, the PhD generated interest from students and school administrators. This indicates that the PhD program has the potential to inspire women to do high-level study in engineering and logistics, disciplines that are important for railways.
💡 Lessons Learned
Several lessons emerge from the PhD program’s challenges and successes:
- Piloting and Experimentation: New ideas often encounter hurdles. The PhD program, an innovative idea, highlights the critical need for flexibility in response to feedback and unforeseen obstacles.
- Clear and Realistic Timelines: The delay in starting the program, compounded by its tight deadline could have scared off some potential candidates. In the future, the PhD program’s timeframe needs to align with realistic academic timelines or offer extensions.
- Stakeholder Engagement and Communication: A key lesson here is the imperative to balance stakeholder input while avoiding disruptive power struggles. Some university faculty disagreed about which department would take the lead on selection, which created delays. Finally, the candidate selection committee was taken entirely off campus.
- Communication Challenges: Despite efforts to share information about the scholarships, the small number of applicants suggests that either the outreach was inadequate or there is not much demand for transport PhDs.
- Private Sector Engagement: This program could benefit from collaboration with the private sector both to fund the scholarships and to make sure the PhD scholars’ studies are relevant in the workplace.
- A Pathway to a PhD: An internship program open to men and women in vocational schools and universities will provide a hands-on introduction to working for the railway sector while also advancing the female PhD program, deepening the pool of female talent in both academia and the workforce.
Note: Svetlana Vukanovic (Senior Transport Specialist, World Bank), Larisa Puzovic (Lead of the Project Implementation Unit of the Railway Project), and Sonja Mamic (Advisor to Assistant Minister for Railway) provided inputs into this case study.
🪜 Career Progression
Women in the rail sector face numerous barriers to career advancement, many of which stem from structural inequalities and workplace practices. A key issue is the lack of accessible training and skill development programs, which limits opportunities for women to upgrade their capabilities and move into more advanced roles. Additionally, the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work often carried by women requires employers to adopt more flexible and inclusive approaches when designing work schedules and career pathways. The absence of support systems such as tailored mentorship and professional development programs further hinders women’s ability to thrive in the sector. These gaps contribute to high attrition rates and discourage long-term engagement, particularly in technical or operational roles where women remain significantly underrepresented.
🧩 The Challenge
Transport and infrastructure sectors remain among the most male-dominated fields globally, and Türkiye is no exception. Engineering, logistics, and railway operations have long been perceived as unsuitable
🧩 The Challenge
Transport and infrastructure sectors remain among the most male-dominated fields globally, and Türkiye is no exception. Engineering, logistics, and railway operations have long been perceived as unsuitable for women—a perception reinforced by years of under-representation and limited pathways for young women to gain exposure to the sector early in their careers.
The General Directorate of Infrastructure Investments (AYGM), part of Türkiye's Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, manages large-scale public infrastructure projects including the World Bank-supported Railway Logistics Improvement Project (RLIP). While AYGM plays a central role in building the country's transport backbone, attracting and retaining women in technical, planning, and operational roles remained a persistent challenge. Without deliberate intervention, the next generation of female engineers, urban planners, and logistics professionals risked missing out on formative public-sector experience entirely.
🛠️ The Intervention
Embedded within the RLIP, AYGM launched a structured internship program targeting female students in their final years of undergraduate study across STEM-related disciplines—civil engineering, architecture, urban and regional planning, environmental sciences, and international logistics. The program ran continuously from 2020 to 2025.
Interns were placed in project units aligned with their academic backgrounds and assigned supervisors who provided structured guidance, technical mentorship, and regular feedback. Each intern engaged with real project activities rather than purely administrative tasks, enabling them to gain hands-on experience with the planning, evaluation, and implementation phases of public infrastructure projects.
The program also incorporated an inclusive selection and application process. From 2023 onwards, AYGM adopted the national Career Gate digital platform, which allowed students to create profiles, submit academic records, and indicate their preferred departments. Shortlisted candidates received formal internship offers through the system, ensuring transparency and equal access. Interns received a stipend set at one-third of the national minimum wage, along with work accident and occupational disease insurance, reducing financial barriers to participation. Upon completion, performance evaluations were delivered to students for submission to their universities.
🏗️ Implementation Challenges and Successes
The program did not unfold without obstacles. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted both the 2020 and 2021 cohorts, causing gaps in standard documentation practices and requiring exceptional planning arrangements. Record-keeping limitations from those years meant that follow-up studies could not be conducted for early cohorts—a data gap that underscored the need for more resilient monitoring systems from the outset.
Nevertheless, the program demonstrated remarkable momentum. As internship systems became more established after the pandemic and the national Career Gate platform was adopted, both the scale and quality of the program improved substantially. Supervisory models were adapted to institutional constraints: rather than assigning a dedicated mentor to each intern individually, AYGM implemented group supervision, with one supervisor guiding small clusters of students—a practical solution that preserved meaningful guidance without overwhelming staff capacity.
📊 Results
The program significantly exceeded its original targets. The initial goal was to host 20 female interns over the five-year project period. By 2025, AYGM had hosted 250 female interns—12.5 times the original target.
Follow-up phone interviews conducted in October 2025 with interns from the 2022, 2023, and 2024 cohorts provided insight into the program's longer-term impact on professional development and labor market integration:
- 2022 cohort: Of 20 respondents, 80% were employed, with 62.5% having secured positions within 6–12 months of completing their internships. Roles spanned logistics, engineering, architecture, and city planning.
- 2023 cohort: Of 20 respondents, 50% were employed. The majority worked in the private sector, with roles including architecture, procurement engineering, geotechnics, and city planning.
- 2024 cohort: Most respondents were still completing their degrees, but 27.8% of those reached had already entered the workforce in roles including civil engineering, sustainability advisory, and city planning.
Across all cohorts, interns consistently reported that their AYGM experience offered an indirect—but meaningful—connection to their professional roles, suggesting the program built transferable skills and institutional awareness that extended well beyond technical knowledge.
💡 Lessons Learned
The program surfaced the following lessons:
- Structured placement matters: Directing interns to units aligned with their academic backgrounds—and ensuring active supervision—significantly enhanced the quality of the experience. Internship programs should be treated as complementary tools supporting project goals, not administrative add-ons.
- Early inclusion accelerates change: In sectors like railway infrastructure and logistics, where women are significantly underrepresented, early and meaningful exposure—particularly through internship programs—can shift perceptions and career trajectories. Female interns who gain visibility in these environments are better positioned to envision long-term careers in the sector.
- Centralized, transparent systems widen the pipeline: The transition to the national Career Gate platform diversified the intern pool by drawing students from a broader range of universities. Centralized application processes increase trust, reduce bias, and strengthen institutional accountability.
- Data collection must be built in from the start: The pandemic-related record gaps from 2020–2021 highlighted the risks of ad hoc documentation. Monitoring and feedback mechanisms need to be designed alongside program implementation—not as afterthoughts.
- Follow-up studies are worth the investment: Even limited-scope follow-up interviews yielded valuable insights about employment rates, career trajectories, and the alignment between internship experiences and professional development. These data points support evidence-based program improvement and help make the case for inclusive internship models.
📌 Conclusion
The RLIP internship program demonstrates what is possible when gender inclusion is treated as a core project objective rather than a peripheral add-on. By providing 250 female students with meaningful, supervised experience in public-sector railway infrastructure—far exceeding the original target of 20—AYGM created a replicable model for bringing women into one of Türkiye's most male-dominated sectors.
The program's impact extends beyond the individual interns. It signals to universities, employers, and female students alike that women belong in transport infrastructure. With each cohort, the pool of women who can reference credible public-sector experience on their CVs grows—building the foundation for a more diverse and skilled workforce in Türkiye's railway and logistics sectors for years to come.
🌟 Leadership
Women aspiring to leadership roles in the rail sector encounter unique challenges that go beyond technical qualifications. Informal decision-making processes—often influenced by entrenched biases and power dynamics—undermine merit-based advancement and limit women’s access to leadership positions. The lack of mentorship opportunities and the scarcity of female role models in leadership further exacerbate these challenges. Without relatable mentors who understand the specific hurdles women face in the industry; many feel isolated and unsupported in their career journeys. These dynamics not only hinder individual progress but also contribute to a wider leadership gap within the sector.
Table 4.4 highlights some interventions to support women’s career progression and leadership aspirations in the rail sector. Boxes 4.3 and 4.4 present case studies from Egypt and India and Azerbaijan, respectively.
INTERVENTIONS | OUTPUT INDICATORS |
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A performance review system: Develop a performance review system for staff with a standardized framework linking performance reviews to workforce competencies, skills development, and promotions. A range of actions can achieve this objective, such as establishing a promotion committee comprised of both women and men, adopting a blind selection process where candidates’ CVs do not include personal details, and testing participants without revealing their personal details to eliminate potential conscious or unconscious gender bias in promotion decisions. |
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Women’s mentorship programs: Implement a mentorship program pairing women with senior female and male professionals, focusing on various issues such as, career development and addressing specific workplace challenges. |
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Women’s networking: Create forums for women in rail to connect, share experiences, and seek mentorship. Organize events for networking and building connections in rail. |
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Women’s leadership training program: Establish a targeted leadership training program for women in the rail sector, focusing on strategic planning, financial management, and team leadership. |
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Annual review process: Implement an annual review to track progress in women’s representation in managerial and senior roles using specific metrics to measure effectiveness and adjust initiatives as needed. |
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OUTCOME INDICATORS |
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🧩 The Challenge
If a lack of childcare keeps women out of the workforce, the solution is to bring the childcare to work. India’s Mobile Creches program allows women
🧩 The Challenge
If a lack of childcare keeps women out of the workforce, the solution is to bring the childcare to work. India’s Mobile Creches program allows women to get, and keep, construction jobs because babies and children can come to work with their mothers. In Egypt, the country’s national railways is opening an improved childcare center because, while women make up 18.5% of the labor force, they comprise only 3% of over 40,000 Egyptian National Railways employees.1 Notably, almost one-half of Egypt’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates are women, but barriers such as gender norms, limited childcare, and restrictive workplace policies often keep them from working in engineering and technical jobs.
🛠️ The Intervention
In India, Mobile Creches, as its name suggests, sets up mobile childcare services at construction sites.2 Mobile childcare is especially useful in rural areas, where childcare options are limited. Providing childcare on rural road construction projects can significantly increase female labor force participation and contribute to more inclusive and sustainable development. In Egypt, the new childcare facility will be designed to support both male and female employees. It will use an employee survey to inform its offerings.
Mobile Creches provides more than just childcare, though that alone is crucial. It offers health care, nutrition, and early learning services for children ages zero to twelve. Operating 40 centers and serving over 5,000 children, the organization aims to put childcare centers at all worksites, as a matter of policy. In Egypt, offering on-site childcare hopes to increase female labor force participation and retention at the railway.
💡 Lessons Learned
The Mobile Creches’ early childhood care model is a smart and innovative way to help working parents and a useful tool for addressing gender disparities in the workforce. Egyptian National Railways’ childcare facility might be less novel, only because it is stationary, but also supports employment and retention, especially for women workers. These projects highlight that both India and Egypt recognize the crucial role of childcare in supporting families and the benefits of promoting women’s participation in, and retention within, the workforce. Mobile childcare services in rural road projects help remove barriers to women’s employment, benefiting not only women but also their families and broader communities. The childcare facility at Egyptian National Railways serves as a model for integrating social support into infrastructure projects, with the potential to set a significant example for other large employers. Both projects tackle a fundamental barrier to women’s participation in traditionally male-dominated industries.
Note: Salma Abdel Fattah, Senior Transport Specialist at the World Bank, provided inputs into this case study.
1 Cairo Alexandria Trade Logistics Development Project (P177932).
2 Mobile Crèches. https://www.mobilecreches.org/; Rising Together: Annual report for Mobile Creches 2023-24.
https://www.mobilecreches.org/_files/ugd/ee163e_2527e717a143419f9c06a6fe14322c55.pdf
Above: Video on unleashing women's potential for employment in the transport sector in Azerbaijan
🧩 The Challenge
In some countries, women cannot work outside the home for cultural reasons. In
Above: Video on unleashing women's potential for employment in the transport sector in Azerbaijan
🧩 The Challenge
In some countries, women cannot work outside the home for cultural reasons. In others, caring for children and elderly keeps women out of the workforce. In others, national laws bar women from taking some jobs. In fact, legal restrictions in 12 countries limit women’s job access to certain transport jobs, while policies in 45 economies restrict women’s work in hazardous jobs.1
It is not just women who suffer because of job restrictions. These restrictions also hurt businesses, because barriers to entry for women shrink the national talent pool, undermining economic development. These legal bans on women’s work are often based on outdated assumptions about health risks. They take a paternalistic, old-fashioned view of women and do not account for technological advancements and modern safety standards.
Until 2022, Azerbaijan’s legislation prohibited women from working in 674 occupations scattered across the economy, from transport to energy to agriculture. For example, women were not allowed to lay asphalt, work as train engineers, or drive a city bus with more than 14 seats. Women were legally prohibited from being hired in a wide array of industries that involve working underground, potentially dangerous work, and hard physical labor. These restrictions, inherited from laws of the former Soviet Union, mean there is a stark divide between where and what men and women do for work in Azerbaijan; women mostly work in low wage careers, e.g. in health and education, while men dominate other often better remunerated fields.
🛠️ The Intervention
In November 2022, with the World Bank’s technical support, Azerbaijan repealed these restrictions.2 The November 2022 changes replaced blanket restrictions on female labor with a health-based approach that applied specifically to pregnant women and mothers with young babies.
This reform aimed to open access to higher-paying jobs in transport and energy, addressing workplace segregation and narrowing a high gender pay gap in the country. It looked to boost female labor force participation so businesses could benefit from a larger talent pool, improve diversity, and promote innovation.
In parallel with supporting the Labor Code reform, the World Bank worked with two state-owned enterprises – Azerbaijan Railways and the Port of Baku – to improve their human resource policies and increase the representation of women in these male-dominated industries. This collaboration has already led to notable progress:
- Azerbaijan Railways launched its first-ever training program for women train operators and established a women-in-rail network to support its female staff.
- The Port of Baku committed to increasing women’s employment from 8% to 20% by 2030.
💡 Lessons Learned
Azerbaijan’s experience offers valuable lessons for countries planning to remove the barriers to women’s employment:
- Setting an Example: Azerbaijan serves as an important model for other countries, particularly those in the former Soviet Union that still carry similar employment bans.
- Comprehensive Action: Countries must address legal and cultural barriers at the same time; legal reforms must be buttressed by policies designed to influence social attitudes and workplace behavior.
- Evidence-Based Approach: Data and risk assessment were vital for challenging outdated assumptions and key to changing both policies and attitudes.
Above: Video on unleashing women's potential for employment in the transport sector in Azerbaijan
📌 Conclusion
Azerbaijan's repeal of employment restrictions on working women is indeed an important milestone in advancing gender equality in the workforce. However, as this case points out, legal changes alone are not enough to ensure women's full participation in the labor market. Societal norms and deeply ingrained gender stereotypes still play a significant role in shaping career choices and perceptions of what jobs are suitable for women. To truly transform the labor market, efforts must go beyond simply lifting legal barriers. Engaging with large state-owned enterprises, as this initiative did, particularly in sectors traditionally dominated by men, is an essential strategy. By working with these companies, societal attitudes can be shifted, and a more inclusive culture can be created that welcomes women into all professions, especially in areas like transportation, construction, and engineering.
1 World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law. 2024. https://wbl.worldbank.org/en/wbl.
2 World Bank blog: With legal restrictions lifted, it is time to break “soft” barriers to women’s employment in Azerbaijan.
Entrepeneurship
Women entrepreneurs operating in railway stations face barriers such as limited business training, unclear vendor policies, and high permit costs, which hinder their ability to start and grow businesses.
Informal competition and lack of access to networks further challenge their success. Targeted training, financial support, and stronger market linkages are key to enabling their participation and growth.
💼 Business Skills Training and Advisory Services
Women entrepreneurs operating in railway stations—particularly in the retail and service sectors—have unique opportunities to establish businesses such as small shops, food stalls, or childcare services. However, many women are either unaware of these opportunities or lack the guidance and support needed to navigate the system. Further, inconsistent vendor policies and unclear lease agreements create uncertainty and hinder business continuity. Informal competition from unregulated vendors and the unpredictability of train-based foot traffic add to the difficulty, often resulting in unstable income streams.
Tailored business training and advisory services can play a critical role in bridging these gaps. Such support can help women understand licensing procedures, develop business plans, and navigate complex vendor policies—thereby enhancing their confidence and capacity to engage in railway station commerce.
🏦 Access to Finance
Even when women are aware of the business opportunities in railway stations, they face significant financial barriers to entry. Securing vendor permits can be prohibitively expensive—not only due to formal fees but also because of informal payments and hidden costs that add to the burden. These financial hurdles limit many women’s ability to start or sustain businesses in these settings. Without access to affordable credit or startup capital, women entrepreneurs struggle to invest in inventory, infrastructure, or staff. Financial support mechanisms tailored to women—including microfinance, grants, and flexible loan products—are essential to enable their participation and success in railway-based enterprises.
🔗 Market Access and Linkages
Women entrepreneurs tend to be excluded from business networks that could offer peer support, shared resources, or market insights. Strengthening access to such networks and formalizing market linkages would help level the playing field, enhance business resilience, and open up opportunities for growth. These intertwined challenges restricts women entrepreneurs’ potential to thrive in the railway sector. Table 4.5 highlights some interventions to promote women’s entrepreneurship in the rail sector and the corresponding indicators to measure progress.
INTERVENTIONS | OUTPUT INDICATORS |
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Market access through spaces at railway stations: Reserve retail space and stalls for women entrepreneurs to set up their physical shops at railway stations. Provide training on marketing strategies, logistics, and customer engagement to help women maximize their income from these spaces. |
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Procurement: Strengthen the capacity of the procurement workforce (rail authorities) to enhance awareness among potential bidders, including women-owned enterprises in the retail and hospitality sectors, about available opportunities. Provide capacity building workshops to help women navigate procurement processes, develop competitive proposals, and connect with opportunities to supply goods and services for railway station projects. |
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OUTCOME INDICATORS |
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